I added 1985 lucha libre lineups, mostly from the cities Torreon and Gomez Palacio, to the luchadb database over the last week. They’re integrated the different pages of this site, and they’re also just available here.
This is a slow continuing project to mine the El Siglo de Torreon archive for lucha lineups and results. It’s one of the few Mexican newspaper archives available online, and the archives aren’t hard to access. I did the usual keyword search for articles and looked thru the sports section every Thursday and Sunday for extra posters. I’m sure I missed a few, but it’s as complete as I get it. I’ve done these in the distant past and stopped mentioning with a post because there didn’t seem to be much interest, but I’ve come around to realizing this is a lot of work so I owe myself a post out of it, and not much interest in what I’m writing hasn’t really stopped me from writing anything else
This is where I’m at in this project
1940-1964 not started
1965-1967 kind of in the db?
1969-1979 not started
1980-1985 FINISHED
1986-1989 archive search done, need to be typed up
1990-1998 not done
1999-2005 FINISHED
2006-2006 weirdly not done
2010-2017 FINISHED
My plan was to finish typing up 86-89 and then alternate back to magazine work. But I’ve been thinking about Condor Dorado (Ultimo Guerrero) debuts in 1990 and it’d be cool to have some of those lineups found, so maybe I’ll change. Typing up the four years I’ve got done is going to take some time either way.
The 1985 ones generally follow the booking patterns ones from previous years: local feuds lead to apuesta matches when they lead anywhere, and title matches are almost non-existent. There’s a trios tournament that’s starts and ends without making any sense, so it’s normal.
3 bits from the 1985 lineups
The affiliations to the various Sunday arenas seem to change a little bit over time, but the Thursday Arena Olimpico Laguna is solidly with UWA/LLI/El Toreo. Maybe Dr. Wagner came up thru there and was more willing to go back, but it’s still surprising to see him and Solitario around their peak considering how stars almost never come up there now. Did they pay better then? Was getting there cheaper/easier? Did they just lose the booking connection when UWA went away? I dunno.
They’re well into Pantera del Ring being an exciting youngster who’s moving up the cards and it’s impossible to reconcile this with current day Ephesto. I know they are the same people but I’m not sure I believe it. He’s often partners with a guy named Megatron, who’s later end up feuding with him for years.
Business is good enough to have three local arenas running on most weekends, though which arenas are running various greatly
DTU (THU) 06/29/2017Arena Aficion [+LuchaTV]
1) Erwing & Irwing b Billy & Hard Boy
2) Toto b Príncipe Cometa, Voldemort, Astrolux, Pardux, Black Metal, Drolux, Rey Kingston
3) Camuflaje & Tony Iron b Aero Boy & Hormiga DTU vs X-LAW. Tony Iron & Camuflaje are new members of X-LAW (which also included Halloween, ANgel o Demonio, Pesadilla, Dragon Yuki, Gio and Junior.) Camuflaje challenged La Hormiga to a title match.
4) Dragón Yuki, Gio, Junior, Pesadilla b El Exótico, Jimmy, Kevin, Príncipe Cometa
5) Crazy King b Markus Crane, D-Pólux Jr., Moria, Tiburón
6) Ángel o Demonio & Halloween b Paranoiko & Tóxico and Corsario Negro Jr. & Ovett The other X-LAW members helped Halloween & Angel O Demonio won, then attacked Ovett & Corsario Negro Jr. after the match.
7) Cíclope & Miedo Extremo b Jimmy Lloyd & Matt Tremont said to be very good match. Markus Crane & Crazy King both got involved. Miedo Extremo needed five stitches after the match.
About the usual turnout and changes for a DTU show. Super Mega & Mike Segura are the two notable names who were listed but didn’t end up appearing. +LuchaTV was at this show so we might see this on their channel. DTU is Queretaro tonight, with the GCW trio of Matt Tremont, Markus Crane and Jimmy Lloyd take on Ovett, Paranoiko and Toxico in the main event.
Both AAA & CMLL are active tonight. AAA is running it’s (about) annual June Puebla taping, while CMLL kicks off their own yearly Universal tournament.
CMLL’s Universal tournament usually goes to one of the top stars of the promotion. Last year, it went to Valiente, who was treated as a top star for a few months and then returned to being Valiente. It does make it more uncertain who’s got a chance this time, since CMLL has shown more people are in contention (and it matters even less.) In this block:
Normal finalists: Volador Jr., Negro Casas, Dragon Lee, Valiente Outside Chances: Shocker, Hechicero, maybe Angel de Oro No: Luciferno.
Another way to look at it
Good Idea For Three Matches Tonight: Volador Jr., Negro Casas, Dragon Lee, Hechciero OK Idea For Three Matches Tonight: Valiente, Angel de Oro Still No: Lucifierno please no don’t do it this would be bad for everyone: Shocker
This could be a fun series of (short) matches if CMLL plays it out nicely, but it’s dependent on how much CMLL in in denial Shocker. He still gets a reaction of people recognizes him, and CMLL hasn’t moved him off the top matches, but he’s struggling back fro his latest injury and was already greatly diminished by prior injuries. CMLL should be aware that putting Shocker in multiple matches is bad for him and bad for them, but they’re doing a Pierroth/Vangellys feud so I’m not sure how much they care about bad matches. Today’s also is the Copa Bobby Bonales, and that should be the thing Shocker wins
The undercard has good matches, though some things are going to have to be cut short to fit everything in. The semimain is Misterioso, Pierroth, and Rush versus Vangellys, Rey Bucanero and Terrible, which seems like something that should go two falls to build up that hair match in two weeks. I wonder if Misterioso still remembers when Pierroth & Rush buried him and Sagrado for being lazy. (The CMLL preview slightly references that.)
The rest is rivalry-less trios which all have some promise. Atlantis, Blue Panther and Gran Alterantiva winner Soberano take on Dragon Rojo, Mephisto and Sam Adonis, which seems like Soberano’s reward for winning the tournament. The second match has the great combo of Guerrero Maya, Rey Cometa, Titan taking on Polvora, Ripper and Virus, who’s won six of his last seven matches. The opener looks extraordinary for that position, with Drone teaming up with the Panther and Pegasso against the Nueva Generacion Dinamitas.
The show will air on ClaroSports and probably on Facebook. Hopefully it’ll air complete, I think we’ll all be frustrated if it starts late again and we miss that opener. I want to go on Twitter and ask them to make sure to start the feed on time this week, but I don’t think I can do it without sounding annoying.
AAA taped tonight in Puebla. Like all shows, we have a card and an expectation that none of the matches will happen as listed. It’s going to be more of a problem than usual, since the show was hyped locally around three singles matches (Psycho/Pagano, Mesias/Wagner, Mundo/Texano). None of those matches make sense with current AAA storylines.
I made a dumb mistake a couple days ago: I said Johnny Mundo wouldn’t be on TV for months, but he’s listed on the TV taping tonight. I guess I could still end up being correct – Mundo hadn’t mentioned the AAA show as of this morning – but AAA at least has him scheduled for tonight.
The undercard makes a little more sense than the main event: Poder del Norte is supposed to face the Aerostar/Drago/Raptor, and that match is actually supposed to happen based on what they said up on the last show. There’s not telling about the rest. The show is listed as starting at 9pm, and we probably won’t get notes on the show until about 40 minutes later. AAA’s a month ahead on taping, and these matches won’t start airing until 07/29. Maybe there should be an expectation of some TripleMania announced since the card will probably announced before the following taping airs, but that’s not the way AAA has worked this year.
PWInsider has a report saying Drago & Hijo del Fantasma are allowed to appear on Impact because AAA hold the rights to their characters, any character AAA hold the rights to can appear on Impact, and Lucha Underground had nothing to do with the deal.
This report, which seems sourced from Lucha Underground production, does not fully make sense. It’s not “AAA” who owns the rights to Drago in the US, AAA gave those rights to “Lucha Libre FMV”. That parent company owns all the AAA LU names and all the LU names the same. It’s in the US trademark search and not hard to find.
If the only issue is who has the rights to the character, then Ricochet or Sami Callihan or anyone should’ve been allowed to appear on Ring of Honor or NJPW’s US show under their non-LU characters. Both have indicated on Twitter that they were told no to showing up on TV elsewhere, because the actual human beings can only work on TV for LU. This sure seems like AAA & LU rewriting contracts to their own advantage. I’m open less cynical explanations.
This is generally unimportant, since LU & AAA can do what they want to do and disadvantaged LU wrestlers will probably just continue to try to wait them out because it’s too costly to fight legally. Maybe important is I’d assume Impact would like to have AAA officials at Impact to promote the international partnership – if Dorian Roldan is there, we’ll probably get at least one good story of him and Konnan “reuniting.”
Diamante Azul says he’s aiming to win the Gran Prix and the heavyweight championship while in Mexico. He says his (three) children are going to come visit Mexico for a couple months.
Asturiano & Vegabeat El Perverso & Joker (15:26 [8:04, 4:43, 2:39], 1/3, ok?, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
Amapola & Dalys beat Marcela & Sanely (10:53 [2:37, 2:37, 5:39], 1/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
Espíritu Maligno, Fuego, Pegassobeat Ares, Arkángel de la Muerte, Black Tiger (10:57 [5:09, 2:24, 3:24], 2/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
Felino, Puma, Tiger beat Drone, Johnny Idol, Stuka Jr. (12:14 [4:08, 2:52, 5:14], 1/3, good, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
Dragón Leebeat Negro Casasin a lightning match (7:16, hanging double stomp, good, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
Niebla Roja, Rey Bucanero, Terrible beat Pierroth, Rush, Último Guerrero in a relevos increíbles match (9:26 [2:02, 2:20, 5:04], 2/3, ok, via VideosOficialesCMLL)
What happened:
Marcela double knees look like the hurt much more than the stomp
Ultimo Guerrero fouled Niebla Roja once again.
Dragon Lee beat Negro Casas to end their feud.
Ares and Espiritu Maligno feuded all match, with Maligno getting the pin as a surprise. They set up a hair match for next week.
Dalys beat Marcela with a powerbomb and a handful of the ropes. They also made challenges for next week.
Thoughts:
Dragon Lee es fuerte
This was a better Puebla show than usual, because it actually had multiple good matches.
Dragon Lee/Negro Casas was fun while it lasted. Negro sprung on Dragon Lee from the start and they kept up the fast pace thru the seven minutes. It was much heavier striking match than normal for lucha libre, and one without the loud impact noises this match might have elsewhere. Some of it looked like it wasn’t quite close enough, but enough of it worked. They didn’t do dives, they only di a few holds, but they had the intensity the whole way and Negro took big bumps like ever. Casas’s quickness at this point in his career is amazing; he doesn’t move like a 50 year old. This is worth watching.
The fourth match was really good too. Drone does really well in these Puma & TIger matches, but everyone seemed out and the match was laid out nicely. The second fall finishing minute was really well done, and Stuka accidentally landing the splash on Idol was an unexpected twist. (Maybe Puma & Tiger want to cover and then pose instead of the other way.) Drone putting his arms on his tope like he’s a plane is a great development. I liked this match more than the lightning match and it was not that far off from being great.
Both the opener and the women’s match weren’t far off. The opener was close to as good as it’s going to be with the first match limitations. It started out slow, but the rudos showed good personality – this is the first time we’ve really seen that much out of Perverso – and the tecnicos did all they could. The women’s match worked quickly and the rudas were nicely aggressive in their match. They didn’t go too long while still doing a tease for Marcela/Dalys next week. Sanely tries, but she’s got timing issues and seems to forget exactly what they’re doing at times. She’s not hopeless but there’s room to improve.
Zacarias
It took me most of a fall to notice Black Tiger was a rudo in the second match. He was as boring as usual. The crowd was into to Ares/Espiritu at the end, so it’s good it’s those guys who are paying and not me. The main event was mailed in; Rush doing the corner charge bit twice in a two minute fall was amazing in it’s laziness. Not sure why they did the finish with Niebla Roja & Ultimo Guerrero when Niebla Roja iasn’t back here next week, but probably because they don’t care if it makes sense.
AAA starts on the Ciudad Juarez show, which happens to be Verano de Escandalo. I’ve an educated guess that the Mascara de Bronce match, the tag team title match and the Pimpinela/Mamba hair match are airing this week.
Lucha Underground concludes the first round of the Cueto Cup, and this appears to be the last show with 4 tournament matches on one night. Dragon Azteca/Dante Fox looks like the big match, and the preview suggest we’re going to get Fox’s backstory this week.
CMLL Claro has Block A of CMLL Universal tournament, or the competition to find out who gets to face Ultimo Guerrero in the final
I’m scheduling other things to do during CMLL Puebla.
I didn’t realize the genius of this until now: the Oficials lost their hair, and their next IWRG appearance is on the show where everyone gets to wear their mask.
All matches were taped at Gimnasio Olímpico Juan de la Barrera, Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal on 05/26/2017
Mini Psycho Clown defeated Dinastía to win the AAA World Minis Championship
(9:05, powerbomb w/rope grab, good)
Argenis & La Parka beat Averno, Chessman, Súper Fly
(7:47, Argenis inside cradle Chessman, below average)
Dr. Wagner Jr. & Psycho Clown beat Hijo del Fantasma & Texano Jr. (8:58, Psycho inside cradle Texano, ok)
What happened:
Dinasita escape
OGT, to start the show and before their match, took credit for running Ricky Marvin out of town. They didn’t seem to mention him by name in all of this, but Ricky’s not been back yet. It was explained that Vampiro ordered the trios match to be a 3 v 2 handicap match instead. OGT dominated 90% of the match, but still lost when Pirata Morgan convinced OGT he was on their side only to trip up Chessman for an Argenis cradle. Pirata again had words for La Parka.
Mini Psycho Clown beat Dinastia to win the minis title, thanks to some help from Mamba and a grab of the rope that was missed by the referee. Pimpinela was Dinastia’s second and, like all tecnico seconds, completely useless.
Neither team wanted to work with each other all that much in the main event, but they didn’t do a traditional tag match so it didn’t come up much. Dr. Wagner eventually tried to steal a pin from Psycho Clown (who illogically hit this finishing Canadian Destroyer and decided going to the top rope was better than a pin) and later hit Psycho Clown with a chair. He also hit his opponents with the same chair, which was not a DQ this week. Everyone popped back to life, Texano charged at Fantasma for no reason, and never made it there before Psycho rolled him up.
Fantasma tope
Fantasma & Texano brawled thru the crowd and to the back after their match. Poder del Norte sneak attacked Wagner & Psycho Clown, and were about to cut a promo when OGT interrupted. Averno demanded a trios title shot at Verano de Escandalo. Psycho & Wagner took both teams out with dives and brawled with them. The rudos all just sort of left, and Wagner & Psycho came to the ring to tease a fight. There was less to this than the last two times it happened, with both guys just standing and teasing that fight for a couple minutes to get the crowd going, then Wagner knocking Psycho down and pulling off his mask.
The NotiAAA bit was just about the NFL players training lucha libre. The NotiAAA segment is all “AAA in the news” with no build up anything, which is odd.
Thoughts:
Super Fly worked so hard hurting himself
The match quality was a little bit better than usual, but the finishes on those show were really not any good. The minis match ended with a powerbomb with a rope grab before either man really had come close to winning, the second match ended with a distraction to set up an inside cradle, the third match ended with a distraction to set up an inside cradle. Distraction cradle finishes are the worst.
The main event was really a long four way billed as a tag match. They didn’t have the unlikely teams work as teams at all, just brawling in different one on one combinations until the finish. It gave the match a lot of energy if not particular direction. They might have had both if they just put the guys in logical team, but that would’ve missed out on the pointless pin stealing and chair shots. The finish looked like someone actually forgot or screwed up a spot and they needed the fastest way out, because it just didn’t fit.
The post match promos were another situation where the people putting this together knew the Verano de Escandalo match was meant to be a tag match with Psycho & Wagner being forced to team against their will, were building to that match, and just couldn’t/wouldn’t communicate that to their fanbase. Instead, this is the final show before Verano de Escandalo in airing and the normal viewer would have no idea it was meant to start airing next week or what big matches would happen. I don’t understand the advantage of obscuring what you’re promoting but it does seem intentional at this point.
AAA’s absolutely building Psycho Clown versus Dr. Wagner with the idea that Psycho Clown will finally beat Wagner at TripleMania. It’s the same thing as last year with Pagano. They’re not technically doing the singles matches but giving the same visuals.
Psycho makes sure he gets the announce table
There’s no way the Pirata Morgan stuff is ever going to make sense. It’s just not going to happen. The handicap match made sense but wasn’t any good for the long beatdown. AAA’s in Mexico City, they could’ve found a tecnico to fill in, but did the lame match and the lame finish instead. Super Fly is still cool though.
The minis title match wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, though it’s helped that the standards for these things are low. There’s usually nonstop interference by the seconds to the point; they “limited” it here to a half dozen spots and let them wrestle uninterrupted for minutes at a time. Still, Mini Psycho couldn’t get control without Mamba repeatedly tripping Dinastia, and was all in the ring to set up the finish. I don’t think the match did anything to get people more interested in Mamba versus Pimpinela, it was slight enough that it didn’t help Mini Psycho and it didn’t work with Vampiro reversing important finishes with the rudos cheat in other matches – except maybe it confirmed this was not an important match. There were a few highlights, but also the crowd wasn’t in the match otherwise – just throwing these guys out there with no reason behind them hurt. (The crowd generally seemed less into the show than usual on AAA’s tapings in Mexico City.) I think these two could probably have a better rematch, but both were barely used before or after and are clearly not in the plans right now.
No IWRG last night. There was an enormous rain storm in the Mexico City area, causing bad flooding in some areas. The conditions looked unsafe to get people to the wrestling show, so they canceled the show.
DTU starts it’s weekend tour tonight in Arena Aficion. They’re bringing in extreme wrestlers from GCW this time around, with Ciclope & Miedo Extremo taking on Jimmy Lloyd & Matt Tremont in the main event. The other story is Angel o Demonio joining the X-Law side and trying to convince Ovett to join him. They’re partners in the semimain tonight.
CMLL Informa announced Satoshi Kojima as being on Team World for the Gran Prix. This would be Kojima’s debut in Mexico. He’s popular among NJPW fans, but not really known that much in Mexico; the announcement of Kojima participating led to JCR and Ultimo Guerrero talking about everyone but Kojima. (It sounded like UG would like another match with Michael Elgin.) He’ll do fine, and he’ll probably be more over in his Lucha Memes appearance because that’s higher concentrated amount of educated fans, but I kind of thing he’ll just be a Japanese guy to most of the crowd unless CMLL spends some time building him up.
The WON has a story about Sanada coming to CMLL; he was the guy being quietly rumored as being added yesterday before Kojima was announced. There are four spots (or three spots if Marco’s right) left so he could still be added later. Sanada wrestled a little bit in Mexico before going to NJPW and would probably fit in better, but would continue the pattern of NJPW sending their B/C heavyweight type guys and not their top guys or the juniors who might fit in better.
CMLL Informa also had JCR mention that NJPW & ROH wrestlers would only be working in CMLL and likewise with CMLL wrestlers, but Caristico and Sam Adonis were actually independents and so they might be working other places. (I guess Marty Scurll, Cody and the Young Bucks must also actually be indenpedents in CMLL’s thought process.) It didn’t seem connected to anything, except JCR must’ve known those guys were about to be announced for someone else, and today Caristico was announced for an Ultimo Dragon Fiesta show with AJPW on 08/19. They’re treating it like a DragonMania show in Japan. I suspect Adonis will be on that show too.
Imapct announced the tag title team match on Slammiversary will be LAX versus AAA’s Hijo Fantasma & Drago versus NOAH’s Marafuji & Ishimori versus The Crash’s Laredo Kid & Garza Jr. That should be a pretty good match and that’s important. It’s also a match that seems totally impossible to happen in Mexico. Impact themselves refers to the The Crash promotion in the press release (though the NOAH team is treated as a much bigger deal since they’re guests.) I’d think the state of things means the Crash and AAA teams can’t lose to each other, but Impact’s gone this far, who knows how much they can get these two promotions to get along for a PPV that’ll maybe get seen by 20,000 people.
Lucha Underground has been deathly quiet on this situation. And everything else of late.
It’s unclear how luchadors will be signing up: Octagon says the group has a Facebook page, but doesn’t link to it and I can’t find it. I suspect people working a show with Octagon in the near future will be getting sales pitches. Fuerza Guerrera (men), Lady Apache (women), Hijo del Fishman (juniors), Mini Rey Misterio (minis) and Yuriko (exoticos) were announced as heads of various divisions. It seems odd there’s all these groups and it’s this is one of those things that people are going to have see in action to believe it’s going to help them. Octagon says there’s a Facebook with more information, but there’s no Facebook page I can find. I suspect he’ll be pitching guys strongly at shows he works on.
Octagon said they would not be working with the existing Mexico City lucha libre commission, calling Fantasma corrupt. The reports have no explanation why he felt that way, but I’d guess it has something to do with siding with AAA over him. Octagon also said he won his court case for the name over AAA. For what it’s worth, Mexico’s trademark search still shows AAA owns the name.
Hijo del Santo’s quest to get Mexico City to pay for a Santo museum must not be going well: in this interview, he speculates about taking it to Hidalgo or Puebla.
In an interview with SI, Konnan said the Crash was close to a major TV deal. The matches from the latest The Crash show are up on Konnan’s Patreon right now; I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m interested in how it looks if you’ve subscribed to that $5/tier. They’re listed as “KI100+ Monkeys Get It 1st”, so I wonder if that means they might be showing up elsewhere too.
An interview with Laguna luchador Tackle, who’s sons wrestle as Tackle Jr. & Bala de Plata Jr. (Bala de Plata is Tackle’s brother.) Tackle was Funebre Jr., but a guy named Raiders named a football tag team partner.
